


Imperfection

by Crystalwren



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Fairy Tales, Growing Up, Menstruation, TV Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-01
Updated: 2006-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:52:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalwren/pseuds/Crystalwren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles set in the TV series 'verse, all centred on Integra from age thirteen onwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Book learning is no substitute for experience (13 years)

**Author's Note:**

> Written over the course of about twelve months, following Integra as she grows up. Rather experimental and variable in both format and length. Also contains themes and situations that roughly mirror some of what happened to me personally at the same age, but other people may find unsettling or offensive.

She knows what sex is.

The doctor told her. He gave her pamphlets and diagrams and explained it to her carefully. She knows that her breasts are formed from little glands under her nipples, her hips are widening to allow a baby to pass though, that a foetus is made of a man’s spermatozoa and a woman’s egg, and that it anchors itself to the walls of the womb and fees off the nutrients in its mother’s blood like a parasite. She knows exactly what men and women do to make babies, she read the pamphlets, she listened to what the doctor said and she knows that it can all be blamed on hormones, really, a messy and inexact process if ever there was one. She knows that the blood that comes oozing out between her legs is the spent and discarded lining of her uterus, and that pain in her belly and her groin is from that empty and frustrated organ.

She knows that the wild mood swings are part of it all, hormones again, it’s the fault of all those hormones she feels like crying sometimes, when she is sitting at her desk, reading reports and looking at photographs of people with their insides outside. She smells blood, she thinks that she’s imagining it but then she remembers and she presses her legs together to stop the smell, to stop the warm stickiness from coming out and it does no good. And she would like nothing but to leave the office, take off her immaculately starched blouse and skirt and put on something soft and ugly and watch television or read or just stare out the window as her guts melt and run out of her body but she is not a baby, she is not a silly girl, it is a normal process and she knows that because the doctor explained it to her and she listened to him carefully. So, she puts a paper napkin in her underwear, and even though she tries not to squirm the napkin always twists out of shape and her underwear is always stained by the end of the day. At night she finds herself standing in the bathroom, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, washing her knickers with hand soap and drying them with her hairdryer because even though it is a normal process and she has nothing to be embarrassed about, she is. The soiled napkins she burns as soon as she is done with them. There is always a fire burning in her sitting room no matter the weather, and the room always smells vaguely foul even when it’s been airing all day, but that smell she doesn’t mind at all.

In the few days before she menstruates she always feels her libido strengthening, she finds herself looking at people and wondering what they look like naked and what they do when they are alone with their wives and their husbands. Sometimes she wonders what she herself would look like naked because she has ever seen herself naked. She dresses hurriedly and never in front of a mirror. She sleeps and dreams of faceless, featureless humans beside her, on her, under her, all around her and touching her, and she wakes, afraid that it is true and she always thanks God that she is alone. She wonders what an orgasm is like. She thinks about sex. She knows it’s all about hormones, and the things you have to do to make a baby. Babies are the whole point. She is working on disciplining herself; in her office, she will not think about sex. Outside of her office she will not think about sex. She will not think about sex unless she is in her bed and she is alone and she hasn’t seen any photographs of inside-out people that day. She hasn’t quite succeeded yet because no matter what she is doing at least sometime during the task in hand she will suddenly have an image in her mind that wasn’t there before and certainly doesn’t belong. And then she has the sudden, irrational feeling that whoever she is with and talking to at the time knows exactly what she is thinking and sometimes she thinks she would like them to. But she knows that whatever she imagines, they don’t know and she could be thinking of anything she wants to and they wouldn’t know unless she told them. She knows that thinking about sex is normal because the doctor explained it to her and she read the pamphlets he gave her, and the books that Grandfather hid in the library that she isn’t supposed to know about. She knows.

She knows about menstruation; she knows about sex; she knows about hormones and hair and why her blouse is tight across her chest when it used to fit perfectly. She knows that it is normal, and she shouldn’t feel ashamed, and that to want to go and hide in her room every time her belly aches and the blood comes is only something that a silly little girl who doesn’t know anything would do. But she does know, because the doctor explained it, all about hormones and sex and making love and rooting and shagging and fucking and all the words that the soldiers say when they don’t realise she can hear them. She does know so she stays in her office, looking at pictures of people with dead eyes and their insides outside, trying not to think about sex, trying not to squirm and scrunch the paper napkin between her legs, and trying not to look Walter in the eye when he asks her if anything is wrong, and definitely not looking in the mirror.


	2. The past is dream country (14 years)

Try as she might, she cannot picture Walter young.

She’s in the library late at night, and the air is warm and close and smells of graves and old paper A massive hellhound lies drowsing in front of the fire, coat gleaming blue-black and sleek, well-fed. As she watches, it curls its tail more firmly around itself. On each paw, six claws the size of her little finger, all of them elegantly retractable.

She tucks her feet under her body and squirms a little in her armchair. In her lap is an ancient, crumbing photo album, filled with sepia portraits of people now old, and in many cases, dead. Beside each photograph the date and location is noted in an elegant copperplate hand, and the names also. Here: Arthur, no last name, 1938, Birmingham Castle, smirking smugly with his arm wrapped firmly around a pouting sliver-screen starlet. Sir Islands, impossibly young and absurd in cricket whites at Carlisle Green and then this one: a pretty boy in a straight stock and tie, grinning slyly at some joke only he knows. Walter C. Dornez, Poland, 1944. Christmas. She pauses, touches the grainy surface thoughtfully.

 _Just after we wiped out the Deutsch vampire battalion._ The words appear in her head without bothering her ears. She looks up; the hellhound blinks sleepily at her with six red eyes. _He insisted it be taken as soon at the bruises on his face faded. He even took his arm out of the sling._

“Why?”

 _Vanity,_ says the hellhound. It yawns, gullet glinting wetly in the firelight. _He is a very vain man._

“Don’t you mean ‘was’?”

 _No._

She turns the page. Another photograph. Walter dancing, hand outstretched, a ring on each finger.

 _You cannot fault him for being a little vain. He is quite the looker,_ and she hears a wet, tearing, organic sort of sound. There is a man lying in front of the fire, bare-chested and handsome. He smiles at her, but his pale grey eyes are chillingly cold. He tugs winsomely at his long black hair. _Attractive, don’t you think? He has improved so much with age._

“Stop that,” she says, turning her face away. When she looks back the man is a hellhound again and it leers. You would think it impossible for a canine to leer, but this one does, it leers, and sniggers a little too.

 _I guess you’ll improve also,_ it tells her. _You just need to grow up a little._

“I _am_ grown-up,” she snaps, incensed.

The hellhound tilts its head to the side, considering. It stretches, claws flexing and becoming fingers, joints separating and resettling themselves while the creature’s muzzle pushes back into the skull to become a face. Bare skin chases fur away and the cold-eyed man is back, a much younger Walter.

Hellhound-Walter grins toothily and crawls towards her on hands and knees. His shiny black hair lies startling and violent across his naked shoulders and she has to stiffen to keep herself from flinching back as he comes closer and closer. Finally he stops, just short of her armchair. He smiles sweetly at her and opens his mouth to unroll a six-inch tongue. It flicks against her wrist and she shudders. She shivers.

“Stop it!”

 _My master wills,_ says hellhound-Walter smugly. His point has been proved. Without bothering to change back he crawls to his old place by the fire and curls up into a succinct and comfortable ball.

After a while, Integra stops grinding her teeth. “I _am_ grown-up,” she says again. Her companion doesn’t bother replying. She turns the page of her photograph album. The past is another country and impossible to visit if you don’t remember it, but she tries anyway.


	3. Goldilocks and the three bears (15 years)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted in four parts; technically speaking, not a drabble. Also, the formatting in this one is were it gets a touch experimental.

The explosion was violent and sudden.

A crack like a lightning strike; flame; screams and the roar of the avalanche. Tonnes of compacted snow and ice fell between their car and their escort, falling on the bonnet with a jolt that sent Walter’s face into the steering wheel with a wet thud. She pushed on the inside of the car door, pushed and pushed until it opened enough for her to squeeze through into the snow, slogging and kicking chunks of ice aside with her boots so that she could clear a path to the drivers’ side door. She pulled it open; she said his name and she could tell by the way he stared at her through the blood in his eyes that he didn’t understand her or even know who she was. She pulled a shard of glass from his cheek, the remains of his monocle and when she heard the ominous creaking in the cliffs above them she knew that they couldn’t stay there.

Fur coats in the boot, fur mittens to draw over the silk gloves cold had forced her to wear, and Walter’s mysterious valise that he never travelled anywhere without. She put on her coat and fought Walter’s drunken resistance to put his on him too. She draped his arm around her shoulders, held the valise tight against her body and as they staggered away the snow fell again, entombing their car and the soldiers that had been escorting them.

Night came quickly. So did Alucard. He wrapped them in the darkness of his cloak and his embrace was colder than snow, colder than ice, colder than death because he’d passed through that and had reached the other side.

She asked him –what happened to the soldiers? The escort? Did any of them survive?-

He replied –Master, they all did, they are all completely unharmed- and she knew then that she’d been betrayed and that she had walked straight into the trap set for her.

So Alucard carried them to safety, a wooden house surrounded and covered with drifts so high and so deep that only the very top of the roof and the chimney were showing and she held Walter as he swayed, watched the vampire as he cleared the path to the door with claws as long as her limbs. Inside the house was clean and vacant, a frugal little holiday home perhaps, or maybe a hunter’s lodge. There was wood by the fireplace, a great heaping stack of it, and kindling and newspapers in a language she couldn’t read and an old-fashioned flint tinder-box. She took off her gloves but her hands were frozen and she kept fumbling and dropping the flint until Alucard clicked his tongue and pushed her aside to light the fire himself. She left him to take care of Walter, to remove sodden furs and boots and upstairs she found an attic room with three beds made up with blankets and sheets – who’s been sleeping in my bed, Papa Bear? - she thought, hysteria winding a thin edge through her brain and she pulled the musty-smelling cloth into a heaping armload and stumbled back downstairs.

-you let him go to sleep?- she almost screamed when she saw Walter, stripped to trousers and shirtsleeves and face clean of blood, sprawled on a chair and dead to the world.

-he fell asleep suddenly- snapped Alucard –I couldn’t wake him- and no matter how much she shook or slapped the old man she couldn’t either. Her very bones ached with cold and weariness and the urge to sleep was so strong she shook with it. Walter began to shiver and she took off her blazer and her boots, and hung them all to dry with the fur coats.

She said to Alucard –find our enemies. Spy on them. Learn what their plans are, but don’t let them know you’re there-

The vampire bowed with his hand over his heart and melted as she made a nest of the blankets on the floor in front of the fire. She pulled, dragged and pushed Walter into them and collapsed beside him. She tugged the material to cover the both of them and fell immediately into dreams.

The fire had dimmed to embers when she woke again and she thought that it was that, that it was what had woken her, but then she heard and felt Walter stir and mutter beside her and she knew that it was him. Somehow she had rolled over in her sleep and he’d rolled over in his, and he had flung his limbs over hers and he gripped her forearm so tightly it was going numb. She said his name –Walter- and tried to move but he had her pinned down so well that she felt a wave of fear and fumbled for her gun with her free hand. His hips moved and something pressed into the small of her back –Walter? - and he spoke again, one word, slurring it so she couldn’t make out what it was. Fear, and something she vaguely recognised as desire made a knot in her lower belly and she realised that on some sad childish little level that she was enjoying it, wasn’t she, because the last person who’d laid so much as a finger on her had been the coldly impersonal woman who had come to the mansion months ago to fit her brassieres. She sometimes thought she was starved for touch, but who was going to touch her? No one that’s who, no human who would touch her and there was no human she could touch. Before she could decide, before she could say -yes- or –no- Walter said that word and she thought she recognised her mother’s name. She felt his mouth on her shoulder, teeth, and sudden revulsion made her flinch away, leaving him with a mouthful of blouse and hair. He grunted and rocked his hips against her back and his hand tightened on her arm until she felt the bones creak. He shuddered. He said the name. He sighed and relaxed and she knew by his breath on her neck that he had moved into a deeper sleep.

She waited for a while, tense and miserable, until eventually she crawled out of his arms and out of the blankets to put more wood on the fire. She shivered. She didn’t want to sleep next to him. She didn’t want to be part of his dreaming. She didn’t have a choice. It was Walter or freeze to death. Soon enough she crept back to him, and tucked a fold of blanket between their bodies.

Again she slept. Again she woke suddenly. Alucard was leaning over Walter and herself, sniffing, sniffing like a dog on the scent, sniffing thoughtfully with his mouth open so he could taste the air as well as smell it.

She hissed at the vampire to –stop that-

He looked at her with the most serene expression and asked –would you like me to kill him?- in the same tones that anyone else would use to ask if she wanted a cup of tea.

-no- she snapped

-sure?-

She snarled and kicked free of the blankets. Walter grunted in his sleep when her feet struck him, but she took no notice. She pulled on her boots and her furs, cursing the way her breath steamed in the air and knelt beside the glowing coals, thanking God for survival training, for learning how to make fires and trap rabbits and dress wounds, and she realised suddenly that she was intensely, ravenously hungry, that she hadn’t eaten for –forever- she wanted to ask –how long have we been here?- but she knew better because Alucard’s sense of time was so erratic that he had trouble remembering what year it was, let alone what day or week. She examined the house: one main living room that took most of the lower floor. Ancient, decrepit lounges arranged before the fire on a comfortable rug. A door to the side and a door to the back and behind the latter she found a freezing chemical toilet, which she gratefully used.

In the little room that was the kitchen she discovered a large potbellied stove connected to a many-branching pipe system and she examined it closely. The potbelly doubled as a kitchen stove and a central heating device. She managed to get it going, but not before she burned her hand, a long line of blisters from the knuckle of her little finger to her wrist. In the pantry she found candles, the shells of cockroaches dead from lingering poisons; cobwebs; a hessian bag of oats seething with weevils; tins with little pictures of sausages on the labels. She grabbed one of these and set it on the bench, saliva filling her mouth with a great gush as she rattled through the drawers looking for a tin opener.

She pried open the top of the tin and spooned out some of the quivering meat and jelly. It looked foul and smelled worse and she forced herself to take a bite and chew carefully, swallow. One bite followed another and she found herself shoving heaping spoonfuls of the stuff into her mouth, one after the other, frantic, desperate to eat as much as she could as quickly as she could and then suddenly her stomach twisted so violently that she dropped the tin and doubled over, falling to the floor with clenched teeth as she struggled not to vomit. Alucard sat beside her, crooning something in a guttural dead language, and as the spasm lessened he picked up her hand in his. She felt a series of sharp stings and she realised that he was puncturing the blisters with his fangs and licking away the fluids. She let him. She supposed he deserved something.

When he was done she picked herself up and finished off the goo in the tin, little swallows against her rising gorge. More searching saw her find a large saucepan that she carried outside. The sunlight off the snow was blinding and she found tears streaming down her face as she packed the saucepan full of the stuff, because the light hurt, and because it was beautiful and because she felt, for some unaccountable reason, sad. A huge pile of wood by the door, only partially uncovered, and she knew that they had shelter, water, food and warmth, and that they would live provided that the enemy didn’t find them.

She set the saucepan on the potbelly and when it was melted she shut the door and firmly forbade Alucard from entering –watch Walter and tell me if he wakes up- and turned the single, spotted mirror to the wall. She stripped and bathed herself by the warmth of the stove, one limb at a time, with a towel and a bit of soap she’d found in the sink. She was covered in bruises. Little brown ones. Huge, green-blue ones the size of her palm. A beautifully defined handprint on her forearm. She saw that and felt filthy all over, even the parts that she’d already washed. She glimpsed a flash of red in the reflective surface of the saucepan and she cursed herself because she hadn’t thought to cover it. Not enough water to wash her hair, so she combed it with her fingers into a greasy braid and tied it with a piece of string.

After she was done, she sent Alucard away again to spy on the people looking for them and she knelt beside her retainer –Walter, are you okay?- and gave his shoulder a tentative shake. He did not stir. A long strand of gold trailed from his lips and she reached to pull it out.

He snapped awake and grabbed her hand and stared at her coldly, face barbaric and brutal under the bruises and the grey curtains of his hair, stigmatic eye rolled so far back in its socket that only the white was showing –there is a hair in your mouth- she said and he stared at her like she was a stranger. When she asked him –how are you feeling?- he didn’t answer, but when she told him to let go of her hand he did –are you hungry?- and he shook his head and laid back down. He went back to sleep, or at least pretended to, and she rocked back on her heels, watching him, exhausted.

She explored further. A second door in the back led to cupboard with a tin hipbath and a few musty sacks of dried grains. Alucard returned while she was attempting to make some sort of porridge, and laughed at her. He easily shoved her aside and took over, while she stared at him bemusedly.

-why so surprised, Integra? I cooked for Jonathon Harker, don’t you remember? It’s in the book-

-and so’s what you did to him-

-he lived, didn’t he?-

-not for lack of you trying-

He snickered, and told her -men are coming. Hunters, not soldiers, and I think that they own this house. They bring a blizzard with them. Our enemies are still looking, but they are looking in the wrong direction. They don’t know about me- and he gave her a handgun that he had stolen from them and clips of ammunition too.

It was getting warmer inside the house. She left Alucard to his pans, trusting that he –will not poison Walter and myself, thank you very much- and slipped off her furs and put on her blazer. She loaded both of her guns and settled down on the lounge to wait for their unwitting hosts. Despite herself, she dozed off, and that’s how the three bears discovered Goldilocks.

She started awake when something thumped against the door. The wind was howling mournfully, the blizzard just begun. The door opened and three people came tumbling in, bulky and ursine in bright synthetic jackets. They stopped short at the sight of the handgun she had pointed at them, and jumped when the massive hound, polydactyl and glossy red-black by the firelight, snarled and bared its teeth. A word from her stopped it short and instead it grinned at them, a horrible predatory smile. One of the bears shouldered the door shut with little eddies of snow swirling around his feet while the others pulled back their hoods and scarves to gape at the tableau before them, red-black coloured dog, honey and coffee-cream coloured teenager, unconscious man on the floor between the two.

-whence cometh thou? Wither goeth thou?- they spoke to her in their own language and she had to shake her head to tell them that she didn’t understand. One of them held a brace of pheasants; another a string of rabbits and the third had a carcass of a fawn over one shoulder. All three carried hunting rifles, but it obviously didn’t occur to them to actually use these on their intruders. Finally one of the bears unloaded his burdens and stripped off his coat and mittens and his brothers followed suit. Without their hoods they were dark-eyed and dark-haired, gypsy-handsome and the eldest barely touched thirty. This one knelt with her in front of the fire, and while the other two conferred in the kitchen she tried her best, with gestures and crude charcoal drawings on the bare floorboards, to explain how she and Walter and her unusual pet came to be there. The man frowned at her; doubtless her explanation was lacking a great deal but the snow and wind had rendered his little portable radio useless and none of them were going anywhere until the blizzard cleared. The man cleaned some of his rabbits, tossing heads and viscera at the hound that snatched the little offerings from midair and crunched the skulls between its formidable teeth.

When the man pointed first at her and then Walter, miming rocking a baby in his arms she snorted before she could help herself. A word arrived in her head – unchi- and she said it without thinking. The man nodded and touched his chest and said his name. She gave him hers in return, but she had already christened him and his brothers in her mind: Youngest, Middle, Eldest.

The eldest carried his rabbits into the kitchen and the house was gradually filled with the smell of roasting meat. She looked at the hound- that radio has got to go- she thought and she gently, gradually roused Walter from his heavy slumber. She did her best to explain to him where they were, and why, but she was uncertain that he actually understood what she was saying. They ate rabbit and grain porridge with their hosts, together beside the fire. Youngest kept staring at her and whenever she met his eyes he smiled. For the most part she ignored him and concentrated on holding bowl and spoon for Walter instead. When it came time for them all to sleep she gave back most of the blankets, since the house was warm and, ignoring the way her skin crawled, curled up next to Walter under their furs.

In the dark she heard the hound growl softly at footsteps on the stairs. She tracked the sound of boot sole against floorboards until she heard a door open and shut. The freezing, noisome chemical toilet. Despite her desperate tension, the wind soon lulled her to sleep.

She woke to the sound of the hound chuffing in canine amusement. Fumbling with her glasses she saw Youngest kneeling beside Walter’s valise, staring at his sliced fingers. The malicious old git had hidden razorblades in the clasp. Eventually Youngest rallied himself enough to produce a battered little medical kit and she used this to clean and bandage his wounds, and all the while he stared at her breasts underneath the soiled silk of her blouse so that she wished that she hadn’t taken her brassiere off to sleep. He smiled at her when she was done and tried to catch her fingers but he only succeeded in squeezing the side of her hand. Something popped and oozed yellowish, pinkish goo. Her burns had become infected. He squeaked and scuttled off, leaving her to muse upon the type of man who would kill, disembowel and disjoint a deer without batting an eyelash but would flee in terror at the sight of a little pus.

That day, that night, impossible to tell for the blizzard and the drifts reaching up to cover the windows and the doors, was spent by all of them napping, she on the lounge in front of the fire as the red-black hound watched them all. It barely moved, except to thoughtfully lick a many-toed paw. It followed her to the toilet and sat outside the door, waiting. She was woken once by a loud bang and Eldest spitting what were doubtless expletives at the smoking radio. The hound caught her eye and nodded faintly, and just as faintly, she nodded back.

During a brief lull in the wind Walter suddenly threw off the furs and bolted to his feet. He stared about wildly, not knowing where he was. She didn’t move from her place on the lounge, but she watched him carefully and wished that she’d thought to take his rings off him. Eventually he settled and once again she spoke to him, of snow and betrayal, explosions and avalanches. He warily accepted a plate of rabbit from Middle, and she tried not to watch his shaking hands or wonder what they could mean. The knot on his forehead was still black and vicious but she took heart in the way the many little cuts on his face had all but disappeared. He cleaned the blood away from the handle of his valise -people learn the hard way- and his voice rasped like sandpaper as he fiddled with a small plastic black box before packing it away again. He produced a pair of glasses, which he said hurt his eyes and couldn’t wear, a miniature magnetic chess set and his own medical kit. He took her hand without permission and the barely perceptible twitches she made while he cleaned her infected burns were not entirely from pain. He made a crude eye patch from a black handkerchief, watching narrowly as she played chess with Middle and deliberately lost.

Walter began to sway and she packed up the board as the three bears trooped upstairs. She forced herself to lie down next to her butler. He flinched away from her and she noted that he didn’t smell too good. Come to think of it, neither did her. She listened to the chatter upstairs and wondered if they were talking about her.

When next she woke up it was to the thump of Middle dumping an armload of wood next to the fire. He leered at her as she lay sleepy next to her retainer –they think Walter is your lover- and she bolted upright in horror. The hound looked at her calmly and the words that only she could hear arrived in her head –rich furs, you see, silk gloves and your elegantly tailored slacks and blouse, every inch the indulged girl, the kept girl, you as Dolores and Walter as Humbert Humbert- she rolled free of the blankets and stormed off towards the toilet. She aimed a kick at the hound as she walked past and it made a sound between a grunt and a purr –you told them he is your uncle, but frankly they don’t believe you- she could have spat. She came face-to-face with Middle on her way out and he planted an arm either side of her against the wall to trap her. She ducked under his elbow and caught sight of Walter sitting up and glowering at the both of them. She didn’t care to explain.

She sought shelter in the kitchen with Eldest, watching as he cooked the last of the rabbit. He handed her a bowl of porridge, the proper sort made from oats and she ate it, trying not to think of the weevils she had seen in the hessian bag. Youngest asked her, with exaggerated gestures and mockingly elaborate bows to re-bandage his fingers and she did so under the watchful eyes of his brother, but when he tried to return the favour the hound peered around the doorjamb and growled at them both –foolishness- she told it, and was ignored. It bared its teeth at Youngest, so many big white teeth that it didn’t seem possible that they all could fit into its mouth. Eldest threw rabbit bones at it and as it crunched it glared at Youngest as though wondering what he’d taste like. The two brothers spoke quietly together as they stared at the hound, remarking, no doubt, on its size, its six-toed paws with thumb-like dewclaws, its ferocity and apparent intelligence. It preened under their combined fear and admiration –vain beast- she told it as she walked past. She gave a bowl of porridge to Walter and debated telling him about the weevils, but some inner malice stopped her. She waited while he ate, wondering what he remembered from the first night they were there, scratching her oily scalp, feeling little pimples burst underneath her fingernails.

She told him –I want a bath- and unsteady on his feet he helped her to drag the tin hip-bath into the kitchen. They spent an hour taking snow from the wall built up in front of the door and melting it as their hosts watched in amusement. From his valise Walter produced toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap, proper bath soap and she all but pounced on them. She pushed Walter out of the kitchen and once more turned the mirror to the wall. She sat in the delicious warm water and bathed gratefully, washing her hair and her blouse and her underwear and sponged the insides of her blazer, sitting naked in her fur coat until they dried. She quickly gave up trying to brush her long hair and quickly bound it back, knots and all. When her clothes were dry she helped Walter melt more snow for his own bath and after that, more snow for the three brothers as well. Between the five of them it took hours and by the time they were done they were all ready to sleep again. Walter turned away when she lay down next to him and it was a long time before she fell dreaming.

Walter was playing chess with Eldest when she woke again. She felt irritation crawl up her spine like a nest full of ants and she knew that if she didn’t get out of there she was going to go insane.

She decided to dig. The blizzard had calmed for the time being although no one doubted it would rage again soon. She donned her blazer and her mittens and heavy boots and opened the front door to the hollow they had made in the snow the day before. She slipped inside, to begin digging a snow-tunnel just the way she used to when she was a little girl, and soon enough, a hand grabbed hold of her ankle and hauled her out, just the way Walter used to when he felt she was getting too ahead of herself. He wanted to know if she had her handgun –wolves and the enemy, come back when you start to get cold- and she meekly said that she would. She didn’t point out the obvious, that wolves were Alucard’s familiars and that as long as she was his master they’d never hurt her, would protect her from any threat instead.

She dug and dug for what seemed like hours, until she felt warm and she sweated, scrabbling with her hands and pushing and compacting with her knees and back. She only wanted to go in one direction, up, and eventually the snow began to lighten as the light seeped through. She burst through the crust and whimpered at the blaze of sunlight reflected off the brilliant white. She clawed out of her tunnel, whooping for joy. The hound followed soon after, slipping out easily, stretching into a man. She fell back into the snow, exhilarated by the cold, sinking into it, kicking chunks of it this way and that. She let her mind fill with thoughts of relief about being out from under the combined stare of Walter and the three brothers, out from the dim, noisome little house, put into open space and freedom. She thought of her aching eyes and hands and that’s why Alucard had no idea about the snowball until it smacked him in the mouth. She howled with laughter as he stared at her in astonishment –not fair, Master – and could only barely suppress the urge to throw another. With regret she felt the ice seep into her toes and the wind beginning to build again and knew that she had to go back.

She slid inside –you’d better not look at my arse-

-why on earth would you think I’d do a thing like that?-

She fell out the other side, flushed and laughing, the hound close behind. Walter looked up to see her happy and almost cracked a smile himself as he moved checkmate against Eldest. She slept and when she woke up Walter was beside her and the room was dim and empty except for the fire and the hound’s glowing eyes. In the kitchen, sitting on the floor next to the pot-belly’s lingering warmth she rolled up her sleave to reveal the handprint-bruise, still vivid, unfaded. Alucard came to sit in front of her, his expression intent.

-bruises are formed by blood pooling under the skin, aren’t they?- and she offered her arm to him. Gently, tenderly, he made a hundred tiny cuts with his fangs and waited for the blood to seep through. He lapped at it, and she felt something in her groin twist at the softness of his hair brushing the sensitive skin in the crook of her elbow.

-does Walter remember what happened?-

-vaguely. He thinks perhaps he dreamed it-

-then why is he angry?-

-because he worries that it might have been real-

-has he asked you?-

-no-

-was it me that he- she falters, and the vampire says

-no. It wasn’t you he dreamed of- and for some reason she could not name she felt like crying. Alucard snorted derisively against her skin and she felt the stinging itch as he closed the many tiny wounds.

-if he asks, you’ll tell him he was dreaming, that it didn’t happen-

-are you sure? Is that what you really want?-

-yes- and she buttoned up her sleeve and went back to her blankets and furs, to Walter, and sleep.

There was a pimple on her chin.

She could feel it there, squatting huge and malevolent in her skin. She’d always been lucky in that she was not as prone to breaking out like others of her own age, although thinking about it, luck probably didn’t have nearly as much to do with it as Walter’s iron control of her diet.

Walter’s private little war on her complexion was something that had started when she was thirteen and it had continued every day since. Breakouts would see him drastically rearranging her schedule for visits from beauticians and bruising facials. Scrubs and foams and potions would appear on her bathroom vanity unit with depressing regularity, complete with detailed written instructions. Occasionally he would take the drastic measure of seizing her chin between thumb and forefinger and painting her face with powders and sticks of thick colours. There were many things One Did Not Ask Walter, not the least of which included asking where he had learned to so skilfully paint a woman’s face.

Subsequent to all this she found Walter’s apathy to the newly-risen blemish on her chin somewhat alarming.

It itched, so she turned the kitchen mirror back to face her and found a relatively smooth section that gave her reflection enough to pop it. As pus squirted onto the glass and blood began to trickle she realised that, even by her own highly erratic standards, her menstruation was late.

Her burn was refusing to heal.

Her ice tunnel went around the entire house, extending out in several directions. Her knees were black from layered bruises. Her back ached. The blizzard still raged. None of them had any idea how long it had been going for. Day and night were meaningless. With gestures and borrowed words they tried to figure out how long it had been. They all agreed it had been about a week, but that was just a guess. They were all developing a severe case of cabin fever. Middle and Youngest watched her constantly. An invisible umbilical cord had sprung up between the hound and herself, resulting in the near attachment of its neck to her hip. It followed her everywhere. It lay across the toilet door when she was inside, and had nearly shoved its way into the kitchen when she decided to take a bath. While she had cleansed herself she had seen flashes of red all around her as it fought imperfect surfaces and poor reflections.

Without a doubt it was getting hungry. Periodically it would scratch at the door and periodically it would be let out to clamber up through the tunnel she’d made, to break through the crust of snow and hunt for animals in the dark. It wasn’t fond of animal blood but beggars can’t be choosers since Walter was too weak to share his and she simply refused. It seemed the height of rudeness to let it snack on their hosts, especially since her little party were uninvited guests in the first place.

She dug her tunnels. She napped. She tried to work the tangles out of her matted and brittle hair. Middle occasionally made motions to help and was firmly slapped down by Eldest. She played chess, deliberately losing to all three of the brothers although it took a fair amount of skill not to win against the younger two as they played with astonishing ineptness. Eldest wasn’t too bad. Walter had trounced her repeatedly without even trying. She bathed and sponged clean her underwear. When she finally escaped from the house she gleefully planed to burn those garments and her blouse too.

Opening the kitchen door she promptly tripped over the hound and went sprawling headlong into the ground. Someone grabbed her arm and righted her. She looked up as the hound snarled and Youngest smiled and offered her a lopsided newspaper origami flower. She stared at it for a startled few seconds, and then, holding her breath, reached out to take it. The hound jumped up and mouthed her hand, growling –grrrrah!- a fully unpleasant sensation because the inside of the hound’s mouth felt exactly like what it was: cold, slimy dead meat. She snatched her hand away and brought it down hard across the hound’s snout. It responded by rocking back on its haunches and letting loose a wild, maddening howl. Youngest clamped his hands over his ears, paper flower crushed as he stumbled away, fleeing upstairs. She slapped the hound a second time and it glowered at her. She met its eyes steadily and it wasn’t long before it whined and submitted, grovelling on its belly. She grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and hauled it towards the front door, opening it before kicking the hound hard in the backside and slamming the door shut behind it. Sighing, she went and sat on the lounge. Walter was staring at her.

-that was perhaps unwise-

She ignored him –no one’s ever tried to give me a flower before- she felt wistful, and a little sad. She napped.

Screams. She bolted upright. Middle was babbling loudly and she shook her head to free it of cobwebbed dreams.

-what’s going on?-

Walter had the kind of too-calm expression that meant that he was very, very angry –the wind died down, so Tweedledum here went outside to see if the blizzard had finally stopped. He saw- Walter stopped. He took a controlled breath -perhaps you had better go see for yourself, Lady Hellsing- he motioned at the door and obediently she put on her heavy coat.

She slithered into her tunnel, noting with displeasure the little marks on the walls that meant someone else had been there. She thought of the tunnels as her own private space, even though she knew it was silly of her. She climbed up and out, into sleight-grey light. The clouds seemed so close that she had only to jump up and touch them, so thick and solid it seemed that they might come falling out of the sky. The dimness was a thankful thing, because it muted the colours and made the whole tableau a small fraction less terrible.

The doe had died a horrible death. A doe without a doubt, because over there was the uterus with foetus bulging through rents in the muscle. The head had been wedged in the fork of the tree, staring, staring, bewilderment in its frozen eyes. The tongue ripped out, laid carefully across the snout. The carcass impaled on a branch, in through the anus, out through the stump of the neck. Organs scattered around in random patterns. At her feet, a delicate rosette arranged from the small intestines.

No blood. No blood at all.

Her gorge rose and she retched. She clamped a hand over her mouth and doubled over. She closed her eyes and shook.

-your orders?-

Alucard stood before her. He wore a coat, identical to the cut and make of her own, but instead of brown chinchilla fur, his was the texture and colour of red deer.

-what are your orders, my Master?-

He grinned. He gestured at the intestine arrangement.

-I made you a flower, see? Don’t you like it?-

She shuddered. Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees. She spoke and it seemed like her voice was coming from far away.

-I see it. It’s very pretty-

-I made it for you. I made you a flower, to make you happy. Does it make you happy, Master?-

-yes. It makes me happy-

-Master, I see the truth in your mind. You are not happy, and you are lying. I did my best. There were no flowers so I had to make one. There were only green boughs and deer. Deer have such pretty colours on the inside-

-yes, I see. I see that you did your best-

He smiled, and brushed his hair out of his face. The sigils burned into the back of his hands glowed.

-I want to do my best for you, Master. I want to make you happy. Tell me how I might make you happy-

She gazed at him numbly. After a while it occurred to her that the intestines stank terribly and that her knees were freezing. With difficultly she stood.

-it would make me happy if you look for the enemy. Spy on them again. Make sure they don’t come any closer- she shuddered –you may feed off them if you are careful not to kill, not to make any slaves, they are not to know you are there-

-yes, my Master- he crooned –Master, my pretty Master, I gave you a pretty flower- she started as a deafening howl rang out somewhere nearby.

-take that thing down!- she screamed, pointing at the deer carcass. He reached up and tore the branch off the tree with one hand. Wolves were circling, grey shadows in the twilight, snarling, whining, whimpering. They slunk towards Alucard on their bellies with tongues lolling and their tails between their legs.

-my children- he said –my children will watch you while I’m gone. My children, my hungry children, I have meat for you-

-leave- she said, shaking with something between fear and rage. He bowed.

-Master- he fell into a thousand pieces and flew away on tiny wings.

She backed into her tunnel, but the wolves weren’t looking at her. They fell on the carcass of the poor doe and took it to shreds. She watched until Walter called her name and she went back into the warmth.

Middle was being harangued by his brothers –they don’t believe him- said Walter, a trifle smugly. Eldest delivered a smack across the side of his younger brother’s head and stormed off towards the door, throwing on his neon parker as he went. He returned quickly, chattering –wolves, he says, it’s only wolves making a mess outside, stupid brother to panic over a wolf kill- Walter smiled grimly and Eldest fumbled with his rifle, but the wind was rising sharply and there was really no point going outside.

Eventually, Middle settled and they ate a silent meal together, sitting on the lounges and on the floor, eating those horrible little sausages and jelly straight out of the tin. She was too tired to care and as soon as they were finished they all went to bed. She took off her brassiere and stuffed it into her blazer pocket while Walter arranged their fur coats and blankets. They lay back-to-back for a long time. She shivered even though she wasn’t cold and she waited until his breath became shallow and even, with just a faint rasp. She knew then that he was sleeping and she turned over and timidly snuggled against his back. She shut her eyes tight and lay there, furtively, guiltily, and she was just drifting off when she heard something scrape across the floor and call her name. She rolled over to see.

-Integra-

Uncle Richard, impaled, branch thrust through his anus and coming out through his mouth. One-armed and half his skull blown away to show the brain and wolves lapped at the blood that trickled down.

-Integra- wolves circling around -Integra- his mouth working around the wood –Integra- wolves, wolves, slinking towards her, little grey ones long-limbed and lithe, a big red one, six red eyes and polydactyl –Integra- big red opening its jaws, teeth, jaws within jaws spinning and revolving teeth sharp white teeth all the better to eat her with –Integra!-

She woke up. Walter was leaning over, saying her name, over and over.

-what’s the matter? Why are you shaking?-

She said, very quietly –I had a nightmare-

He hovered there, for the longest time. Eventually he sighed. He gathered her up in his arms and he held her very carefully against his chest as he rocked her back to sleep.

He woke her. He gently shook her until she sat up and blinked at him with sleepy myopia. The sound of hardcore snoring rattled the ceiling above them as he threw wood on the fire and lit precious candles so that the room was almost bright. From the unfathomable depths of his valise he took a comb and a little vial of hand cream and seated himself behind her. He touched her matted and brittle hair and slowly, moving from the ends up, worked the comb through the knots and snarls, using tiny smudges of the hand cream to stop the strands from breaking. He clicked his tongue when she stole a little of the cream for herself, but said nothing when she limited it to soothing her chapped lips. The brushing of her hair was a long and tortuous process. She had washed it only with harsh soap and had given up completely trying to comb it, had eventually tied it back and tried to forget about it. Walter was strangely gentle. The sensation, even allowing for the inevitable tugging, was rather pleasurable and she hummed a little as she rested her chin on her knees. Soon enough, a series of crashes shook the building and he stopped, instead quickly braiding the free strands and binding then with string.

-why did you stop? You haven’t finished yet-

-it would be inappropriate for me to continue with an audience-

-why? How would it be inappropriate?-

The door on the landing opened and the first of the three brothers stumbled downstairs. Walter opened his mouth to speak, clearly annoyed, but then his face changed and took on a peculiar cast of mingled patience and resignation –you’ll understand when you’re older- he got up and walked into the kitchen, leaving her to tie back the rest of her hair. She performed the complicated manoeuvre of putting on her bra without taking off her blouse, listening as she did so to the manly grunts of Youngest emptying his bladder. He never, for reasons she didn’t understand, closed the toilet door as he did this. Middle came down before she could fasten the last of the buttons and he caught sight of a bare inch and a half of skin between the base of her throat and the silk. He gave her a cheerful leer and she looked at him with exasperation because he’d seen nothing at all, really. From the kitchen came the sudden cry of disgust –weevils!- and she snickered before she could stop herself.

She let Middle go into the toilet before her, and all the while Youngest stood next to her -câine, câine- he repeated the word, over and over. He finally held his hands to his temples and mimed a panting dog and she realised that he was asking about the hound. Middle finished and she shrugged at Youngest before shutting the door in his face. She relieved herself and poured icy water over her hands to cleanse them. She decided that at least some small pretence of concern over the whereabouts of the family pet would be appropriate. She tugged at the bandage over her burn. Her hand felt strangely numb and it barely hurt at all.

While Walter was occupied in the kitchen, presumably picking weevils out of the oats one by one, she pulled on her fur coat and mittens and heavy boots. Remembering the wolves she moved one of her handguns to the coat pocket and checked that the other was secure in its ankle holster. She opened the door and slipped out, scrambling up her tunnel and breaking the crust. The snow was falling softly and thickly and there was no wind at all. Squinting through the snowflakes on her lashes she could just make out the shapes of the fifty metres away. She hauled herself out and onto the drifts but no matter how carefully she tried to walk she kept sinking down. She was breathing heavily by the time she made it to the trees and pushed her way though the heavy boughs of one, an evergreen pine, its dense needles catching the snow and gathering it, forming a cosy, protected little hollow around the trunk. In this space, the first privacy she’d had in forever, she slipped the mitten and then the glove off of her good hand and shoved them into her coat pocket. She worked this hand though the sleave until her arm was free under the coat, and one-handed she unzipped the front of her slacks. She touched herself, with all of the urgency that only a hormonal teenager who hasn’t been able to do it for weeks could muster, keeping her mind carefully blank, and when she finished she shuddered and slumped against the hard wood with a relived sigh. She had the wits to refasten her clothing but otherwise she drifted, thinking idly of doing it again, wondering how it was that she wasn’t embarrassed by the memory of Walter’s arms around her last night. It was exactly the way Daddy had rocked her to sleep when she was a little girl, and by rights she should have been mortified, letting herself be treated like a silly child.

She snapped into awareness at the crunch of snow outside of her tree. Unmistakably footsteps, one two, one two. Bipedal. A bear? Unlikely. No telltale heaviness at the base of her skull, so it wasn’t Alucard. Human, then. She slipped her arm back into her coat sleeve and fingered the handgun in her pocket. She heard him call her name –Laydee Integrrralll- a guttural sing-song. Heavy accent. She wondered which of the three it was – Laydee Integrrrrralll, iubito, scumpul meu- a choice between Youngest or Middle, obviously. Youngest she could probably bluff. Middle she would probably have to shoot. She slipped her palm around the grip and put her thumb on the hammer. She pulled it back with a satisfying click and he sniggered. She waited. Something brushed the heavy branches, heavy lumps of snow slithering off the slick needles.

She heard something growl.

Not the hound. The hound could pack the depths of hell and damnation and promises of torture, defilement, and despair into a single short growl. This growl was something simpler and much more basic. It said, quite eloquently, that it wanted to eat and that fresh and bloody meat happened to be standing right in front of it. Frightened gasps; the clatter of fumbling hands on a rifle, only now discovering that the weapon had been quietly rendered useless even though to all outward appearances it was sound. The bear whimpered and stumbled away through the snow, and she, thinking it was best to wait a while before returning to the house, squatted down on her heels and set the rest of her clothing to rights. She wondered what it would have been like to lie down with the man, whichever one it had been. She listened to her pounding heartbeat and wondered if what she was feeling was desire. She suspected not.

There was movement outside of her little shelter, and as she watched a pale muzzle push under the branches. She aimed the gun. Intellectually she knew that the wolf would not hurt her, but intellect was suddenly drowned in a million years worth of monkey instinct rushing up from her hippocampus. The wolf sniffled and snuffled, and soon withdrew. She waited a little longer, starting to shiver because it really was very cold, until finally she shoved her ay through the branches, cursing when a lump of ice suddenly worked its way in between her collar and her neck. She beat at it, making futile scrapes with her bare hand but she knew she was only making it worse. She glanced up and froze. The wolf was sitting just in front of her, waiting calmly, and what’s more, the snowfall had become heavier. She could no longer see the sharp points of the house roof. She could no longer see where she was. She was lost in the snow.

The wolf, creamy coloured and elegant, yawned. The pink mouth was vivid and violent. It trotted up to her, completely unafraid, brushing against her coat, fawning, affectionate. It scrapped at her boots with a narrow paw, and after so long around the monstrous hound, she felt a sense of shock at seeing the delicacy of the claws. It turned abruptly and trotted off, pale coat quickly becoming almost indistinguishable against the snow. Only its vulva, swollen and distended, was distinctly visible and when the wolf-bitch yipped over its shoulder at her she lunged forward, following desperately. She chased that spot of red, slogging her way through the drifts, the animal hesitating often, whining encouragement when her clumsy human feet sank into the white and were stuck. It didn’t take very long because they weren’t all that far from the house after all, and very soon the bitch stopped at a certain spot and dug energetically. The snow tunnel, entrance collapsed in on itself. She forced her way to the animal’s side, picking up the compacted chunks and throwing them aside. The entrance was almost clear when she heard the sound of the pack.

The unlikely pair was surrounded by tumbling wolves, long-limbed and lithe, coats in every shade from white to black. The bitch was pushed, nudged away from her while she stood still as not to provoke them. The pack was excited and feral. The creamy bitch was nipped and teased mercilessly while it cringed in submission. She took her gun out of her pocket, gloveless hand blue with cold and pointed at the wolves, uncertain whether she should go to the rescue of her rescuer. She was shaking so much that she could barely aim and she stood there, indecisive, when finally an iron-grey dog lashed out with his teeth. The other wolves scattered away, out of reach of the dog-wolf’s fangs, but stayed close. When the dog mounted the bitch and began to hump energetically she whimpered and pressed her mitten to her face. She was surrounded by filth. She felt dirtied. Dropping to her hands and knees she slithered backwards into the tunnel, unwilling to turn her back on the animals for an instant.

The walls of compacted snow were roughened by the impatient feet that had been there just before her. There were spots of bright blood. She fell out the other side, straight onto her backside and she had the gun pointed at Walter before she was even aware of his presence. He wasn’t impressed, going by the expression on his face -I was just coming to fetch you- she tried to speak but only gasps came out. He reached out, slow and steady movements, and gently pried the gun out of her hands –are you well?- she shook her head miserably. He scowled further. His fur coat and hair falling loose over his cloth eye patch made him look downright barbaric and she flinched without thinking when he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to her feet. He stripped off her coat and her heavy boots, roughly inspecting her feet –no frostbite there- he took her bare hand, snarling at her blue fingers –no frostbite there either, you were lucky this time, my lady- and stripped the mitten and the glove off of the other. He picked at the bandage wrapped around it. She found her voice at last.

-it’s fine, not cold at all-

-have you been cleaning your wound?-

-yes, every day, it’s fine-

-stay there-

He pulled off his fur and draped it over her shoulders because she was still shivering. He said –you’re soaked. Get undressed and cover yourself up- she looked frantically around for the three brothers –they’re all upstairs, seems one of them had an encounter with the wolves and has a nice hole in his leg- she pulled the coat tighter around herself.

-turn your back-

-why?-

-I said turn your back!-

-why? Will I see something that shouldn’t be there?-

-that’s an order!-

He clicked his tongue and went to fetch the medical kit. She stood with her back turned to him and stripped off her blazer and blouse. Her slacks were soaked so she took them off too, leaving her only in her knickers and camisole. She wrapped the fur, smelling comfortably of Walter, around herself and turned around. Walter was watching her with the strangest expression. He’d been watching her the entire time. She hissed at him, outraged.

-no marks. Any fresh ones, that is. So I won’t have to kill him after all?-

-how dare you!-

-or are there no marks because you didn’t fight him?- She wound up and tried to punch him. He stepped smoothly aside and caught her wrist –that was unfair- he soothed –unfair of me to say that. I know you’re a good girl, a good Christian girl- and the words, gentle, appropriate and utterly cruel dug into her skin with hooked barbs. She sank backwards onto the lounge and he went to his knees beside her. He took her first one arm and then the other, pushing the fur aside so he could check each limb thoroughly. He said –that’s strange. I didn’t expect a bruise like that to fade so fast-

-bruise?- she frowned –there were a lot of bruises. From the car crash-

-not from the car crash. From our first night here. I squeezed your forearm, tight as I could-

-no you didn’t-

-I’m certain I did-

-you must have dreamed it-

He took her chin firmly between thumb and forefinger and stared hard into her eyes –I held you tight enough to break bones. I had my arms around you-

-you were dreaming. You did nothing like that-

He kept staring and she met his gaze calmly. Walter had helped raise her. Walter had been there nearly every day of her life since she was born. Walter thought he knew her better than anyone else in the world. Walter was forgetting that she could, after two years of being Organisation Director, stare down the most powerful men in Britain, the Queen of England and all her advisors, and a monstrous immortal that could read her mind. Walter saw tiredness, anger and fear, yes, fear, but he saw nothing that she didn’t want him to see. He didn’t see what he had done to her, that first night they slept next to each other. Something stone in his face suddenly broke and she yelped a protest as he pulled her roughly into an embrace and squeezed tight.

-let go! Let go!-

He stroked the hair back from her face and let her go. She glowered at him.

-what the hell do you think you’re doing, Walter?-

He smiled cheerfully and unzipped the medical kit –my apologies. Swept up in the moment, I’m afraid. I was quite concerned that you’d gotten lost in the snow and that- he grinned –I was out of a job. Your hand, please- the bandage was already sodden, no need to soak the fabric to pull it loose from the wound. She watched curiously as he sniped at the material with a pair of tiny scissors.

-doesn’t this hurt?-

-not at all-

He pulled the bandage away from the wound. It was red and swollen, pus filled blisters, the skin split and gaping. It looked horrific and smelled worse.

-when did you last clean this?-

-yesterday- she felt languid and stunned –I could swear that I did…it’s so hard to keep track of time here-

He watched her face, and grimly pressed down. She felt nothing at first and then the pain suddenly flared into life and she gasped as the whole world turned white as snow. She didn’t resist when he tugged her down to the floor. She didn’t resist when he laid his body across hers, put her arm at a right angle to her shoulder and slipped seamlessly into a wrist-lock to hold her completely still. And when he tore the edges of the flesh apart to reach the infection deep inside, she passed out.

She was walking through a desert, the white sun blazing down until her skin dried and cracked and turned into parchment. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and whenever she tried to swallow razorblades sliced the inside of her throat. She was so hot. The air was thick and warm and it felt like she swimming through blood. Her parchment skin scraped against her tender flesh and she thought that if she could only take it off, take it off like she would a shirt then she could have some respite from the heat and the chafing. So, she seized the edges and tugged until it came off as one piece and tangled around her shoulders and her arms. She struggled, whimpering. She was trapped. She started to panic. Something grabbed her wrists and held them tight together over her head. She almost cried with gratitude when her parchment shirt was loosened, tugged away from the new and delicate skin that had formed underneath. Something cupped her breast, cold, it was cold which felt good but then it squeezed hard and that hurt. She heard a voice, coming from a long way away -how dare you!- and a heavy thud and then her parchment shirt was roughly put back on her, strong hands easily knocking aside her failing limbs.

Cold, blessed cold on her mouth. Cold water running across her tongue and she swallowed quickly, desperately wanting more and she drank until her stomach croaked and gargled. She was pushed down onto soft desert sands and more sweet cold was laid across her forehead and wrists. The bright desert spun around her and began to darken and she said –Daddy? - as the sun set behind the dunes and she slept.

She woke. The house was dark and silent apart from the glow and crackle of the fire. She sat up, shaking with effort. Her head swam and she leaned against the headrest, wondering why she was sleeping on the lounge and not in the nest of blankets and furs that she shared with Walter. Everything was so quiet –Walter?- she stood and felt her knees literally knock together as she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She staggered into the kitchen. Empty. On the potbelly sat a saucepan full of water. She found a grubby glass and filled it. The water was warm but it was soothing, and sweet in the way that only melted snow could be. She lit a candle, clumsy and one-handed. Everything seemed distant and surreal and she supposed, in a dazed sort of way, that she was dreaming, dreaming of being in a house, snowbound with four men and a hound from hell, with her as Goldilocks or Little Red while the men were the huntsmen and the woodsmen and the big bad wolves, all rolled into one wretched mess.

She shuffled her way out of the kitchen and to the foot of the stairs –hello? Is anyone there?- the door on the landing was open and so she climbed up. She put her hand on the banister for support, quickly snatching it back and cradling it against her chest when pain shot up her arm. There was an urge to pull at the bandages so she could see what was underneath but, dazed as she was, she knew better than to actually do that and concentrated instead on the stairs, one at a time, leaning against the wall and resting at every second or third one. It seemed like forever until she reached the landing. The lair of the three bears. Dim light filtered through the single window that was only partially covered by the snow drifts. Three beds, each a rucked up mess of greying sheets and shabby blankets smelling strongly of unwashed people. She drifted over to one of them, attracted by the lurid cover of a magazine carelessly tossed against the pillow. She sank down onto the mattress to read it.

Pornography, nothing like she’d ever seen before, nothing like the elegant engravings of her grandfather’s books, nothing like the sterile illustrations of the educational pamphlets that her doctor forced upon her with depressing regularity. No resemblance to the ‘fine art’ that Walter deemed appropriate and sometimes took her into galleries to see –oh- and she was mesmerised, staring and staring at the pictures of big-breasted, big-hipped women with their waists whittled away to nothing, at the swarthy, hairy men with swollen scrotums and penises. She’d never realised that people could look so naked. The women were just as swarthy and almost as hairy as the men and she turned a page and saw with a jolt –oh- the spread thighs of one, a brutal close up of the hairy vulva and the shocking muddy colour of the labia. She gaped at it –oh- realising that her own vagina, her own cunt would be just as vivid and organic as that. She had never seen it, not really, because even though she knew it was perfectly natural to be curious about her own body, indeed, had often craned her head while she as dressing or undressing, it was anatomically impossible for her to see without putting a mirror down there, and for obvious reasons that was not about to happen any time soon.

With sudden clarity she thought –I’m not dreaming- and she shut the magazine with a soft flap of pages. She was awake and alone in the house, and somewhere outside was Walter and a vampire and three brother hunters. She teetered to the window. In the dim light outside, the snow falling soft and thick, she could just make out many pairs of legs moving in what could only be a deadly kind of dance.

She threw off the blanket and stumbled out of the room, barely stopping herself from pitching headfirst down the stairs. From the pile in front of the fire she rescued her fur coat and pushed her trembling arms inside, growling whenever her bandages caught. She had to sit down to pull her boots on and she snarled with impatience as she tried to force her mittens onto her shaking hands.

She yanked open the door and scrabbled up through the tunnel. She was soaked with sweat before she went more than a couple of metres and she shivered even though she didn’t feel especially cold. It was an effort, she’d never realised how much she took for granted being healthy and able to move her limbs in the way she wanted too and when she finally slid out the other end she lay there for a moment, gasping helplessly. Through the curtain of the falling snow she could hear muffled thuds and sharp exclamations, Walter’s voice silky with menace. She picked herself up and struggled to the side of the house. The wolves formed a strange kind of audience, arrayed in a circle around the fighting men. One by one they flicked their ears at her approach and then looked away, disinterested. Only the creamy bitch that had been her rescuer paid any attention to her. It whined in greeting, mercifully free of any lechery, and when she teetered to a stop it came to lie at her feet.

In the crude arena before her the fight was almost over. Walter, with his strange sense of honour, was fighting barehanded. An old man, effectively blind in one eye and his face still stained muddy with old bruises, beating the crap out of three fit men in the prime of their lives. Periodically one of these would stagger to his feet, attempt a feeble swing of his fist and would be soundly slapped back to the ground. She couldn’t help but notice that Eldest’s trousers were stained with wet blood and that the churned-up snow was an almost uniform pink.

Walter glowered at her as she approached but when he spoke his voice was respectful enough –you are unwell. You should be resting-

-what are you doing, Walter? We are guests here-

The old man’s mouth thinned and he nudged one of the brothers with his foot. Youngest responded by rolling into a tighter ball and groaning –Integra, forgive me for being blunt. These men are deviants. They have tried to take advantage of you, firstly with your relative…inexperience, and then of your illness-

-considering the circumstances, perhaps it’s understandable-

-you are mistaken- said Walter flatly.

-this is an incredibly stressful situation for everyone. People do stupid things under stress-

-forgive me, but their behaviour is simply unjustified. What they were planing to do- he stopped, obviously uncomfortable.

-was the same thing you did to me?- was what she wanted to say, was going to say, opened her mouth to say, but at the very last moment she snapped her jaws shut so fast her teeth clicked, because the words that actually formed on her tongue were very, very different. She blinked, shocked at herself, because that accusation, red raw and bleeding and deliberately buried, was nothing compared to what had been about to leap out of her mouth –just how well did you know my mother anyway?- She shook her head to clear it and sucked in a great chest full of freezing air. Finally she pointed at Eldest –what happened to him?-

-a wolf bit him-

-when?- Walter stared at her, saying nothing. Eventually she understood –oh- she said –oh- and she looked away because the expression on the retainer’s face was something very close to compassion and it hurt. There was a crunch of snow as Middle struggled to his knees. He spat blood and stared at her with blind hatred.

-stricatã- he hissed – stricatã- and Walter kicked him in the teeth.

-ill-mannered fellow-

She felt it before she heard it. One by one the wolves raised their heads and gazed at the sky; a hundred leathery wings, beating all at once. A swarm of bats, tiny horseshoes and massive flying foxes came swooping through the falling white. They swept past her, ruffling her hair and furs as they swirled into a mass in the centre of Walter’s arena. The three brothers scrabbled frantically, trying to get their abused limbs to carry them to safety as the mass of black and wings condensed and became Alucard. The vampire lent down and scooped up a handful of bloody snow. He took a bite and crunched –what did I miss?- he asked, looking around. Youngest screamed. Eldest babbled words that were either prayers or obscenities, or perhaps both. Middle curled up into a ball. Walter cracked his knuckles and looked smug –now can I eat them?- asked Alucard plaintively.

-no!- she turned on her heel and stalked off. She made precisely three steps before her knees buckled under her. Without so much as a by-your-leave Walter picked her up and carried her to the tunnel entrance. She was so tired that she didn’t protest, and while they waited for Alucard to clear the snow enough to make an opening large enough for the pair of them, she fell asleep.

Through her mother’s garden she walked, the roses that the gardeners kept religiously pruned blooming in an insolent and wounding scarlet. Naked men and women cavorted through the beds, laughing and speaking in a language she couldn’t understand. The hum of the bees filled the air and she realised that they were singing a song she barely recognised, in Walter’s voice. She opened her eyes, fumbling instinctively for her glasses. He put them into her hand and she pushed them onto her nose, blinking in the dim light –are you thirsty, my lady? Hungry?-

-no-

He bowed politely and sat back down beside the fire. He resumed brushing one of the coats, combing the fur with his fingers until the dust came out and the matted clumps loosened and lay flat. The sound of his humming wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She looked around. In the air the sharp smell of urine, the three brothers, still in their bright heavy parkers and huddled in a corner. They no longer resembled bears so much as they did three frightened neon sheep. The hellhound sat in front of them, blinking its six eyes benignly. It flicked an ear in her direction –these three raped a girl- it said into her head –they lured her into their house and gave her alcohol until she vomited-

She closed her eyes –I don’t want to hear it-

-she was your age-

-I don’t want to hear it-

Silence. Walter finished with the coat and went to hang it on the hooks. He returned with the other and spread it out across his knees. The scarf across his face was gone and he wore a pair of glasses instead.

-is your eye better?-

-yes- he looked at her and smiled –I think you really should eat. Are you sure you’re not hungry?-

-I suppose -

He retuned with food and water and she took her spoon and swirled it into the bowl of thick venison stew. The smell was pleasant and woke her appetite and she ate it with far more enthusiasm than she thought she would. The hellhound abandoned its place in front of the brothers and padded, claws clicking, across the timber floor to the rug in front of the fire. It circled twice before dropping comfortably to the floor –I still think you should let me eat them-

-I’ll decide what you eat and don’t eat-

The hellhound flicked its ears disdainfully- indeed, Master-

She set the bowl aside and sighed as she sipped from her glass of water. At last she said –Servant, report-

The hellhound grinned–Master, I am delighted to tell you two things that will doubtless be of interest to you. One is that the government of this delightful little country has finally succeeded in squashing the rebel group that attempted to bury you in that avalanche, and that you may not fear murderers slipping through the forest in search of your corpse. Or Walter’s for that matter- the Hellsing family retainer smiled beatifically, as if to say that he personally had never feared anything in his entire life –the other is that the blizzard is going to end, very soon. The loyal members of the Hellsing Organisation have a helicopter prepped and sanding by. They have pinpointed the signal of Walter’s little homing device and will be here as soon as the snow clears enough for them to fly-

-and when will this be?-

-a matter of hours. Five at the absolute maximum, probably less-

It took her a while to realise that she was laughing.

The time passed surprisingly quickly. She was still ill and shaky enough to doze. When she wobbled through to the chemical toilet the brothers, huddled pathetically in their corner, stared at her with bloodshot eyes. As she walked past she heard one of them mutter -vrãjitoare- and she didn’t need her retainer or her vampire to know that the word must mean –witch- and she did nothing except shrug because when you got right down to it they were right. After that Walter sat her down in front of the fire where the bulk of the lounge sat between them and their prisoners and blocked prying eyes. She rested her head on her knees and sighed with pleasure as he finished combing out her matted hair. The hellhound crooned –pretty Master- she jerked as though she’d been bitten and Walter said nothing, just kept combing. He fashioned a serviceable French braid and tied it off with string, telling her to stay still while he went to get the medical kit. She heard a yelp and a thud as he kicked one of the brothers and she stared into the fire until her retinas burned.

-look at this- Walter unwrapped the bandages from her hand and showed her the edges of her wound, skin puckered in strange and swirling patterns –this is keloid. Keloid scaring. I’m sorry, but I think it’s going to spread- she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to know. After he finished she crawled back to her comfortable lounge and went to sleep.

The sound of the helicopter. She opened her eyes and sat up. The hellhound yawned and stretched, claws lengthening to become fingers and muzzle pushing back to become a face. Alucard climbed to his feet, and offered to help her climb to hers. She scowled at him and he shrugged, went to herd their unwilling hosts, pacing at their heels until they were forced through the door and outside. Walter was much more leisurely. He stood by while she pulled on her boots and helped her with her coat and mittens. He donned his own coat, and, taking her elbow in one hand and his valise in the other, guided her to the door. She hesitated at the threshold looking back once. Then she set her shoulders and walked up the ramp of compacted snow, into the blaze of lights and noise.

-Sir Integral!-

-Sir Integral!-

Without so much as an apology grinning soldiers grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up the rest of the way. She was surrounded by her men, jubilant at the return of their leader; never mind that at her tender age they saw her merely as a figurehead. They shouted greetings and slapped Walter on the back. Young Sergent Gareth even ventured to shake her hand, obviously surprised at his own daring. Commander Ferguson ripped off a perfect formal salute.

-glad to have you back with us, marm. What should we do with the prisoners?-

Youngest, Middle, Eldest. Proud hunters. The three bears. They knelt in a row with their hands behind their heads. Youngest and Middle kept their eyes on the ground. Eldest alone defiant, staring at her with naked hatred even as he cried and clear mucus dripped from his nose. It was obvious that they knew they were about to die. The soldiers were suddenly silent, immaterial, ghosts. She drifted through the ranks. She whispered, knowing that the humans would not hear her above the sound of the helicopter –Alucard?-

-yes, Master?-

-what you told me. Was it the truth?-

-yes, Master-

-I will not have you lying to me, Servant-

-I did not lie. I told the truth. The guilt is there, writhing inside his skull like a worm- he rapped the top of Youngest’s head with his knuckles.

-and the others?-

-Master?-

-do they feel guilty?-

He looked at her. He seemed almost sad –Master, they do not-

-why not?-

-I don’t know. I really don’t-

She shut her eyes. The lids stung and she wiped them angrily with the back of her mitten –who was she? Who was the girl?-

-she was their cousin-

-and she trusted them-

-yes-

She shuddered. She clenched her fist, concentrating hard on the sharp thread of pain that ran up her arm. She said –deal with them- and she turned her back. She walked to the massive troop helicopter, surrounded by the members of the Hellsing Organisation. Walter jumped into the helicopter first and helped her up. As soon as she was in her seat by the window Ferguson gave the word and the soldiers crowded in beside her. Directly in front of her was Gareth. The commander himself sat beside her. She fumbled with the headphones and spoke without realising –are all men- and stopped, blushing furiously as Gareth and Ferguson, the only ones who had their headphones plugged in, stared at her.

-you were saying, Sir Integral?-

-never mind-

The scream of the blades grew louder, and she did not look out, did not look out into the dark and the snow, did not look out to see Alucard watching her go.

The trip to the landing pad was surprisingly quick. The ministers and ambassadors had the wits to spare her platitudes and excuses, to merely shake her hand and escort her to the waiting cars. Walter managed to get himself placed in a different car to hers. She was quite sick of the sight of him and she was certain that the feeling was mutual. Instead Ferguson and Gareth sat across from her and watched her as she watched the landscape roll by, eager for the sight of something not restricted by walls. She found herself daydreaming of wolves and, for some strange reason, wolf cubs with coats of pale cream and iron grey. Ferguson waited politely, and then, when he realised that she wasn’t going to talk, cleared his throat gently.

-Sir Integra, may I ask, what happened while you were in that house?-

She said nothing and fixed her eyes firmly on the forest rushing past her window. After a while she spoke. She said – are all men…are all men- she stammered to a stop, embarrassed and ashamed. Gareth, confronted with the sight of his idol bungee jumping off her pedestal, gaped stupidly and tried to melt through the seat. Peter Ferguson reached forward and gently touched her knee.

-not at all. By far and away the vast majority of men and women in this world are decent human beings. It’s just that the ones that aren’t can make a dreadful mess - he hesitated –and if you’ll forgive me, the ones that surround you aren’t the best of examples. Walter Dornez is not- he sniffed disdainfully – a solider-

She felt a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth, and it pulled until it became a big smile, then a grin. She broke out into hysterical giggles and tears streamed down her face. Ferguson wordlessly offered her handkerchief and she took it gratefully.

At the hotel they escorted her to her room. A doctor was waiting for her there, along with some basic luggage and a big vase of cut flowers. He inspected and cleaned her wound and after that she had the exquisite pleasure of throwing him out on his backside. She went and undressed and sat in the shower for a full hour, watching her skin turn bright pink and rubbing lotions and creams into her hair. She masturbated, resolutely thinking of magazine pictures and not real human beings. She ordered fresh fruit and salads and chocolate pudding and while she waited for it all to arrive, she took the big vase of cut flowers into the bathroom and tore the blossoms to pieces, one by one, and flushed the shredded petals down the loo. She ate herself silly. She bundled herself up in soft, comfortable clothing and sat outside on the freezing balcony, just for the hell of it. When her feet got cold she went to bed and left the lights blazing, just because she could.

In the middle of the night she leapt up and ran into the bathroom to vomit convulsively. She went back to bed only to be wakened a few hours later by astonishingly painful menstrual cramps. She attended to herself as best she could, swallowing the painkillers that the doctor had left for her hand, and while she waited for the pills to kick in she hobbled to the balcony, opening the glass doors and shivering in the freezing cold.

Next to no moon, and since the hotel was in the middle of the countryside, no electric lights, either. On the balcony railing was a gift for her: a snowball, perfectly spherical and just the right size and weight for her hand. She picked it up, turning it over, feeling her fingers begin to go numb. She considered it. Then she wound up and threw it, hard as she could, into the darkness.

There was the sound of a muffled thump and a playful yelp. The sound of a hound barking in cheerful invitation to play. Unwillingly, despite the pain from her gut, she smiled.


	4. Sweet sixteen, unlikely to be kissed

Integra Hellsing is sixteen.

She is tall, blonde and, to anyone unacquainted with the abrupt growth spurts of teenagers, alarmingly skinny. Her hair is wet. She is wearing a bathrobe and watching television. She is sixteen.

On the screen flickers a succession of images: black and white horror, lurid romance, animals fighting and fucking and dying... The remote in her hand clicks and clicks. The television murmurs inconsequentials.

Integra is sixteen.

She has never had a boyfriend. She has never been kissed in passion or desire. On her tenth birthday her father had pressed his lips to her hair and ground her face into his breastbone. He was drunk. He smelled like beer and hand-rolled tobacco.

She presses the buttons, click click click. Her hair is wet. There are callouses on her hands from holding a gun.

Today she sent a group of men to purify a building, a den, a coven. It had once been a school, filled with children. The coven master was a child-vampire. He was sixteen. He was handsome. He was a monster, he was a hundred years old. He knelt before her and swore that he would serve her. She put a gun in his mouth and Alucard laughed.

Fearless Rosaleen on the television screen wanders from the path. In the heron's nest the babies hatch and she paints her mouth with rouge. She is sixteen. She is pleased with her reflection in the little mirror. Integra shudders and clicks the remote and something sweeps the hair back from her neck.

Walter today brought her afternoon tea into the office, on a neat little tray, in neat plates and bowels. He'd poured from a delicate porcelain teapot into an equally delicate porcelain cup. There were violets painted along the rim. She looked at his broad hands, the gloves he never took off, the rings he wore even when he slept, the Angel of Death, sudden, gruesome, violent death pouring tea into a cup painted, of all things, with blue violets. She took the cup and took a sip, and he smiled at her. There were biscuits and delicate little sandwiches that he made himself. She almost asked, why? Why is the Angel of Death making tea and sandwiches and smiling at her when she eats them? But she is sixteen and he is sixty and they are both murderers, and she drank his tea and ate his biscuits and thanked him for it.

Integra walked through a shopping mall once.

She was with a cousin. She was pretending to be normal, but of course it didn't work. She walked past a man who smelled so much like her father she almost followed him home. She raises the remote; once again, click. An image of a man and woman making love. Click. Something invisible sniggers in her ear.

Integra Hellsing is sixteen. She has never been kissed, and is unlikely to be. She is a killer. She is sixteen. She is watching television, the remote in her hand, and she is crying, and she doesn't know why. When she feels invisible fingers stroke her ankle, and invisible hands gently push apart her legs she says nothing, just lets it happen. Because of all the things she is, she is only sixteen.


	5. Get rod, get reel, go fish (17 years)

The sky was a steely grey, and likewise the water. The wind was just shy of bitter and it whipped the surface of the lake into little peaks and troughs as the bulging bellies of the clouds overhead seemed to swell and swell with the threat of rain.

Integra shuddered and hunched down further into her oversized jacket. She held a fishing pole in one hand, with the other shoved deep into her pocket. Beside her was a pail full of worms newly liberated from the Scottish mud and beside that, Walter, impervious to the cold as always in his vest and shirtsleeves. He hummed a little tune to himself as he impaled another worm on a hook and stood to cast the line into the water.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Stuck in the guesthouse, waiting to liaise with the local police, she’d looked at the immortal pile of paperwork that followed her around and discovered that duty had its limits after all. She had decided that just this once, she wasn’t going to work. Just this once, she was going to do something completely unproductive like read a book for the sheer pleasure of it, or listen to music, or watch television. But the guesthouse didn’t have television, the radio was broken and the only things to read were magazines that offered sugary-sweet advice on romance and far too many details of the private lives of people Integra couldn’t have cared less about. Within an hour she was bored out of her mind, and the paperwork seemed the only alternative to complete inaction. She had gone to the deserted little bar looking for something to drink that wasn’t warm beer and she had happened to glance up and observe the oversized fish mounted over the bar, presiding over the room with a dust-dulled eye.

So one thing led to another and she found herself marching towards the lake complete with rod, reel, box of lethal hooks and bucket of bait. She’d plunked herself down on the edge of the jetty and spent an entertaining half-hour trying to bait a hook whilst wearing heavy winter gloves. She’d just thrown the line in the water when she had heard nothing break the silence; a fairly good indication that either Walter or Alucard was standing behind her, as neither were in the habit of making noise when they moved and since it was daylight…

"Is it time to go?" she asked without turning around.

"Not at all, my lady," replied Walter, and hesitated. She’d frowned and craned her neck to see him. He actually looked uncomfortable standing there and then he had said, very politely, "may I join you?"

She had blinked and then there had been this uncomfortable silence stretching between them. She’d thought about it, how nice it was to be alone with the grey sky and grey water and a bucket full of worms, wearing oversized clothes that didn’t look in the least bit professional, and no paperwork or patronising vampires or worse, policemen.

She had said, "didn’t you once promise to take me fishing? Years ago. I was just a little girl. Father was still alive."

Walter had smiled. "Yes, my lady."

"You remembered."

"Yes, of course."

There was another long silence. Finally, she had turned back around to look out over the water.

"You’d better get a fishing rod then."

"I already have one," and Integra had heard the smile in his voice.

So Walter had sat beside her, and with the same frightening level of skill and precision that he applied to everything, he’d tied a hook and sinker to the end of his line and drowned a worm with it. After a while he’d started humming.

Integra dangled her legs over the edge of the jetty and eyed the ominous clouds, daring them to open. She could feel the water currents tugging at her line. At least, she assumed it was the water; it could be actual fish for all she knew, but she thought it unlikely since in the end, she’d cast the line without baiting it.

"Walter?"

"Yes, Sir Integra?"

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. After all, what could she say? That it was nice, despite the cold and the clouds and the depressing grey all around, to sit here, harassing blameless fish that they didn’t even intend to eat? That it was nice, sitting here with him? That creeping shadows came to her at night and pressed themselves between her legs so that she felt a dozen little mouths suckling her all at once? That she liked it? That she didn’t like it? That she was ashamed for her weakness in allowing it?

In the end she said, "nothing," at the same time the end of Walter’s rod dipped sharply. He reeled in the line quickly, and reached out over the edge of the jetty to pull up a trout dangling from the hook in its mouth, gills heaving and body thrashing desperately. He was pleased, and held it up to show her.

"A fine size," he said proudly as it fought for its life. "There’s good eating on one of these."

"No!" she said sharply.

His smile faltered. "I’m sorry?"

"Throw it back!"

He was too well trained to question her. Without a word he pinned the fish down on the wooden planks and used a pair of pliers from the box to pry the hook from its lip. She watched anxiously as he leaned over the edge of the jetty, and slipped the fish gently back into the water. Its tail moved sluggishly, and it faded into the depths like a dream. She stared at the place it had been for a long time before she looked away.

"I’m sorry," she said finally, looking up. He was smiling like he always did.

"Not at all," he replied cheerfully. He shook the water off the end of his fishing line and stripped what remained of the bait off the hook. He cast it back into the water without putting new bait on.

They sat there together for a long time. After a while it began to rain.


	6. Something borrowed, something blue (18 years)

The rain came down.

Three straight weeks of rain. The only time it stopped was when it made way for sleet. The warlocks stayed at home; the werewolves curled up in front of the fire; the vampires kept themselves to themselves and Integra Hellsing caught up on her paperwork while her soldiers cleaned the creeping rust off their guns. The entire British Isles laid low under this dripping, bastard rain.

On the third Sunday Integra Hellsing took a lamp and, on a whim, went up into the attics of her vast house. Three attics, one for each wing but only one of these held anything remotely personal. She walked up the stairs and dust rose at every step. In the attic proper the sound of the rain on the roof was loud but not unbearable. Grey light filtered through the windows, grey light, grey sheets, grey dust, grey on her skin and on the back of her tongue. Beneath her right breast, two puncture wounds, the edges ragged and bloodless.

She held her lamp high and looked around. Furniture and tea chests and dozens of mirrors surrounded her. She’d almost cleared the entire mansion of them in the past five years. On canvases, people dead for a hundred years peered out at her through cracked and yellowing varnish.

“Hello, great-grandfather,” she whispered to an old man with sad, weary eyes as she trailed her fingers across his face. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her start, but it was just her reflection. She turned away.

She found what she was looking for.

A carved camphorwood chest sat under one of the windows. Integra sat her lamp on the neck-stump of a dressmaker’s dummy and knelt in front of the chest, tucking her skirt neatly underneath her legs. Opening it released the heavy, saturated scent of climbing Blackboy roses and she sneezed. She looked around automatically, then shrugged and wiped her nose on her sleave. She reached inside the chest. Dead, dry rose petals scattered as she peeled back layers of tissue paper. Books. Photograph albums. Underneath, a package of yellowing silk. She opened a diary. In it, careful pen strokes in purple ink. She didn’t read Hindi well, but she could manage a word here and there: _‘This morning Arthur came to me with a bouquet of red roses…my father does not want me to marry this man, this Christian…’_ She flicked through the brittle pages, and from between them a photograph slipped out: her father, his face clear and unlined, laughing, with his arm draped around Walter. On the back, a caption in more Hindi: _‘The man I love.’_ A date, but no place. Integra sighed, putting the photograph back and setting the diary aside.

She pulled the photograph albums out and stacked them next to her. She would take them downstairs later as there was no reason why they couldn’t be moved to the library. A statue of Ganesha, elegantly wrought in bronze clinked under her hand and she picked it up and held it to the light. It was beautiful, even if it was a heathen idol. She hesitated for a moment, and then set it down on top of the photograph albums. God would surely permit her to keep this small remembrance of her mother. It was only a little thing after all.

Stacking the remaining books one on top of the other, she was able to pull free the package of old silk. She turned it over, undid the knots. Inside was more white silk, embroidered with gold thread. Unfolding it produced cascades of rose petals and a renewed cloud of perfume that made her nose itch. Itching nose or not, it didn’t stop her from exclaiming in delight as she shook open the cloth. An exquisite white wedding sari, quite the most beautiful garment that she’d ever seen. She draped the old cloth over her head and ran to the nearest mirror. Through the dust the gold thread seemed to glow and make her eyes even bluer. Integra wrapped the cloth more securely around herself and bit her lip with indecision. To dress up in her mother’s wedding finery seemed childish at the very least; at worst disrespectful.

The indecision didn’t last very long. She was all of eighteen after all, and eighteen-year-olds aren’t usually noted for their self-restraint. She started hard at her reflection, looking for shadows that shouldn’t be there, but even though the light was dim outside it was still midday and the vampire would be sleeping. Integra went back to the chest, took off her plain blouse and her plain skirt. She reverently slid the gold petticoat up her thin hips. The short gold blouse buttoned, but tightly in front; her mother, it seemed, had had smaller breasts and wider shoulders, but not hugely so. Integra could still wear it, but probably not for much longer if her own breasts became any fuller. The edge of the blouse came to just above the bite marks, leaving her midriff scandalously bare. Last, the sari. She’d not worn one before but she had seen photographs. She tucked one end of the sari into the petticoat band at her back and wrapped it around her hips. She draped it over her shoulder, and then, over her hair.

The girl in the mirror was beautiful, exotic. Blue-eyed and coffee cream skin in a silken wedding sari. Integra stared at her reflection, mesmerised. Stands of hair fell about her face, set off by the richer gold of the embroidery.

Feeling silly, she set her hands together as if she were praying and curtseyed low. She raised her arms in a pose that she had seen Indian dancers take, then took another pose, then another. She twirled once, to see if she liked it, then again to make sure. She laughed, and twirled, and twirled, the silk rising and flowing and all around her the scent of Blackboy roses….

Suddenly, she stopped. She blushed, feeling embarrassed and childish. Walter stood there watching, the strangest expression on his face.

He blinked slowly, shook his head as if to clear it. He said, “forgive me for disturbing you, Sir Integra,” and gave her that peculiar expression again.

She looked away, miserable. “I suppose you think this is pretty stupid,” she said, plucking at the material, surreptitiously arranging it to cover the puncture wounds, the place where it hurt.

“Not at all,” replied Walter gently, “it just struck me how much like your mother you looked.”

“I didn’t think I looked much like her at all.”

The butler stepped towards her. He reached out to touch her hair and, astonished by this rare gesture, she let him. He arranged the cloth over her shoulder, fussing at his until it hung properly.

“You don’t look like her,” he said. “You have her skin, and her height, but you are your father’s daughter. But sometimes, when you tilt your head just so…” he smiled, and she found herself smiling back. “Your mother was very beautiful.”

“Am I?”

“You’re beautiful too, Sir Integra.” He stoked her shoulders gently, and then slid his hands down her bare arms. She shivered suddenly, and jumped when he slipped his hand under the fabric, onto her rib cage. He squeezed ever-so-gently, and she flinched. “I thought so,” he said quietly. Resting his forehead against hers he whispered, “I know. I know what you’re been doing with Alucard. I know that it’s been going on for a very long time,” and Integra gasped like something had kicked her in the chest. She tried to flinch away but Walter pressed his palms to the side of her head and held tight. “It’s all right. It’s all right. Hush,” he soothed, and he pulled her into his arms.

She buried her burning face in his chest. “I suppose you think that I’m a whore,” she said bitterly.

“No, no,” he crooned, “Nothing like that at all. Considering the circumstances, maybe it’s even understandable. But Sir Integral,” he pushed her away just enough to see her face, “to let him bite you is another matter entirely. In the first place it’s too risky, and ultimately, you are the master. Not him. Understand?”

  
“Yes,” she said, looking away, looking at their reflections in the mirrors.

“You’re too much of a lady for that.” Gently he forced her to meet his eyes. “Promise me that it won’t happen again. Promise me that you won’t take a risk like that again. Promise me that you won’t subject yourself to him.”

Integra shuddered. “I promise,” she said thickly. “I promise.”

Walter smiled. “I’m glad.” He stroked her face with his forefinger. “You know, I have never seen you look so lovely as you do now.” He leant forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. A gentle kiss over each of her eyes. A last, lingering kiss across her mouth and then he stepped back. He bowed formally and the old polite mask slipped over his features again. “I came to see if you were really for lunch,” he said.

Integra blinked at him slowly. “Yes,” she said thickly, “I’ll be down shortly.”

He bowed again, his hand over his heart. He turned and walked away, leaving her alone wearing her mother’s white silk wedding sari with a pain under her breast, leaving her in the dim, dusty attic. Leaving her surrounded by her reflections and listening to the sound of the rain coming down, drumming on the roof over her head.


	7. Imperfection (21 years)

She feels the coldness in the air that inevitably precedes his arrival, but she does not turn around and her hands do not cease their motion.

 __

 _What are you doing, Master?_

Her hair is very long and always tangles badly when it’s wet. Without a rigorous regime of drying and combing it would become a disordered mess of curls at the ends. She hates disorder, and she hates mess. She always brushes it before it dries.

 __

 _Master, let me comb your hair. I do not need a brush._

She always uses the heavy silver hairbrushes and combs that her mother left her, the metal worn smooth and shiny around the grips, tarnished along the patterns of dancing fauns and satyrs. The glass in the hand mirror is cracked and spotted, but she likes it that way.

 __

 _I don’t like it when you use things made of silver._

Which is precisely why she does. She even wore silver jewellery for a time, before she became bored with it. And it had never fitted in with her precisely cultivated image anyway.

 __

 _I agree._

The comb snags on a knot, and another, and another. The strands break and drift down to the floor. Messy. She cannot abide a mess, and that’s why she keeps servants. She lays the comb down on the dressing table, and leans forward to inspect her face in the mirror. Her dressing gown slips open a little, and she can see the curves of her breasts.

 __

 _It’s not perfect, Master, but it is certainly very lovely._

She knows very well that she is not beautiful. Her nose is too long and her face too narrow. She is tall and slender, but her buttocks are too skinny and her breasts are too heavy. The combination of pale hair and dark skin is more commonly found in certain types of beauty parlours, and although hers is natural, it doesn’t really look it. She curls her lip, and she can see the front tooth that is ever so slightly crooked amongst the rest.

 __

 _I like your smile. It reminds me of wolves in the winter._

She uses tweezers to pluck a stray hair from under her eyebrow. There is a blackhead erupting beside her nose. She’s been trying for days to evacuate it, but the damn thing is rooted fast.

 __

 _There is an easy way to get rid of it, you know. It works. It really does. You won’t need any of those loathsome chemicals either._

She gives up on the blackhead, and instead starts rubbing an unscented cream onto her face, her neck, her breasts. It gives her a small, wicked pleasure to see herself reflected, sensual and open in the mirror. She can feel his breath on her neck. If she turned around she’d see him hovering behind her, focused, intent. The devil on her shoulder. She can only see him some mirrors, but not others. Not the dresser. Instead she picks up the little one, the little silver hand mirror, and holds it up. She sees his face, distorted and broken.

 __

 _Cracked. How appropriate._

He leers. She lays the mirror back down on the table, and takes up the comb and resumes brushing her hair.

 __

 _For a woman who is not vain, you nevertheless care a great deal about your appearance._

It took an effort to maintain her indifferent seeming. If she wore cosmetics, she could cover over the flaws in her skin. If she dressed her hair she would not have to worry about the wind twisting it into wild knots. She would be able to tame the stubborn cowlick on her forehead that refused to submit to water alone. Instead, a strict regime of creams and cleansers and discrete beauty therapy upheld the illusion of uncaring.

 __

 _You smell delicious._

He is always unbearable when she menstruates. She’s never understood it. She asked him once, years ago, why old, dead blood was so appealing to him, why the scent of her waste was so attractive, and he’d looked at her and smiled and replied, because it is yours of course.

 __

 _Just think, a body that does not age. A skin without stray hairs or dirt to mar it. Eyes that do not need correction. You’d be free from all of the filthy tiresome chores that reduce you the same level as the rest of the stinking human race. You’d be above them, like you should be. Master, say yes!_

Integra looks at all her imperfections in the mirror and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was written first and is chronologically the last. Technically, this series needs two further drabbles at nineteen and twenty to be complete, but I moved out of the Hellsing fandom during this time and the series is unlikely to be completed. It wasn't even meant to be a series anyway, it just sort of happened.


End file.
